The past few years have seen polling workers and the vote tabulation process subjected to extreme scrutiny, with officials and even low-level workers facing intimidation and death threats. In 2008’s Swing Vote, young teen Madeline Carroll is so upset deadbeat dad Kevin Costner has failed to show up at the polling station, that she forges his signature in the ledger of the sleeping monitor and puts a card in the electronic voting machine. Then a cleaning woman accidentally knocks loose the power cable for the machines and no vote is recorded. Just imagine how insane the furor would be today if this happened.
What is really unfortunate is this particular presidential election is a dead tie. Neither incumbent Kelsey Grammer nor opponent Dennis Hopper has enough electoral college votes, and the popular vote in New Mexico is split evenly until the vote it appears Costner was going to cast is resolved. He is given ten days to recast his ballot. In the meantime, the candidates both appear in person, desperately trying to curry his favor, and a media circus descends upon the small town where Costner lives.
That town is Texico, New Mexico, a natural rhyme that just begs to become a couplet in a song. The perfect person to do that would be Willie Nelson, who is in this eclectic cast. Alas, he doesn’t improvise a song about Texico in his brief appearance here.
The large and rather unusual cast also includes Paula Patton as the TV reporter who breaks the story, Nathan Lane as Hopper’s campaign manager, Stanley Tucci in that same capacity for Grammer, George Lopez as Patton’s boss at a small station, Judge Reinhold as one of Costner’s two best friends and Mare Winningham as our protagonist’s estranged wife. In addition to Nelson, another key cameo is Richard Petty, who shows up at Costner’s trailer in his race car and offers the man the opportunity to take it out for a drive.
That is the ideal bribe for the type of person Costner plays here. Regardless of what one may think of the actor, he knows how to channel a particular type of low-income American laborer. Although his “Bud” is a buffoon who drinks too much and can’t hold a job, he is still likeable. Even better, he will gradually experience a transformation into a better person by the time the end credits roll.
That growth is largely courtesy of Carroll, who we first see waking her dad in the morning and getting him ready for his job at the egg packaging plant. She’s even packed his lunch, and he complains about it being egg salad again. She reminds him he needs to vote today. She also needs him to sign a school assignment where she was supposed to get his political opinions but instead wisely filled it out with her own.
At school, Patton and a cameraman film Carroll and other students reading these essays, which means it must have been an exceptional slow news day, even for rural New Mexico. When it is discovered the election hinges on one errored ballot that needs to be recast, she follows the clues to Costner. Lopez exclaims, in what I like to think was an ad lib, “I’m so excited, I got my accent back!”
The film’s second act is its strongest, with increasingly ridiculous and desperate efforts from both candidates to secure that vote. My favorite bit was Grammer’s anti-environment Republican suddenly announcing Costner’s favorite fishing spot on the Pecos River will become a nature preserve, making previously protesting Sierra Club members in attendance cheer while Grammer’s supporters next to them start booing. The reactionary responses to Costner’s every whim will have Hopper also doing a 180 on a couple of his policies, making ads against immigration and abortion. The latter is the film’s most audacious and hilarious moment, as Hopper walks around a playground where there are children playing, only to have one after another explode into colorful puffs of smoke.
Despite many funny moments and lines in the film (and there are a great many), it does touch on many issues, some of which are even more in the forefront than they were at the time. Costner expresses fear of not being able to afford insurance and that immigrants will steal his job. No matter how one feels about those topics, one can see how they would concern somebody in his position.
The many speaking parts in this film are perfectly cast, except for Patton, who I never really believed as the TV reporter. Part of that may be how her character, despite being important to the advancement of the plot, is given relatively little to do. She expresses scruples early on that no aspiring journalist would pretend to have. Towards the end, it seems she is falling for Costner, but this seems unmotivated.
The best performances are Costner and Carroll. There’s a child-like joy to the sudden attention he’s receiving, such as a bit where they are in a limo, watching live TV of a helicopter shot of their vehicle in transit, so he amuses himself by poking his hand out the window and seeing it appear on TV. Despite his energetic performance, Costner is often at risk of being upstaged by Carroll, who takes the opposite approach. She doesn’t even have to deliver a line to get most of her laughs. Her obvious disdain for the phoniness surrounding her speaks for itself.
Also impressive are Grammar and Hopper. I would have thought the idea of Hopper as a potential president laughable before seeing this, but he definitely sells it in one of his most restrained performances. I liked how the script doesn’t portray either as a buffoon, but as a person who once had ideals that were slowly whittled away by the endless compromises necessary for a political career.
In the end, our hero will arrange a debate where, as he puts it: “Tonight, a below-average man is going to choose between two exceptional men.” The questions come entirely from the voluminous mail he has received, recalling the courtroom scene of Miracle on 34th Street.
And this film recalls much older cinema in regards to both humor and drama. It often feels downright “Capra-esque” as it recalls such Frank Capra works as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. While that director’s works were also widely derided as “Capra-corn”, Swing Vote wisely avoids cheap sentiment for most of its runtime (though it does come close to that on occasion).
I won’t give away the ending, but I will say it completely sticks the landing. And yet, my wife and I had a nagging thought as the end credits rolled. There was a line of Carroll’s earlier that social services will take her away from him if he gets another felony. Were felons allowed to vote in New Mexico in 2008?
Dir: Joshua Michael Stern
Starring Kevin Costner, Madeliene Carroll
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray